The effect of bereavement on cognitive functioning among elderly people: Evidence from Australia

Atalay, Kadir; Staneva, Anita

doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100932

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…To our knowledge, our study is the first of its kind to study whether spousal bereavement is causally related to grip strength, and therefore our null finding is not possible to discuss in relation to findings from other studies. Regarding cognitive function, previous cross-sectional and longitudinal studies report inconsistent findings, either that spousal bereavement is associated with lower levels of cognitive functioning [16][17][18][19]39] or no group differences [20][21][22]. This inconsistency in results may be due to cultural differences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study

Strand,

Håberg,

Eyjólfsdóttir

et al. 2024

GeroScience

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Spousal bereavement is associated with health declines and increased mortality risk, but its specific impact on physical and cognitive capabilities is less studied. A historical cohort study design was applied including married Tromsø study participants (N=5739) aged 50–70 years with baseline self-reported overall health and health-related factors and measured capability (grip strength, finger tapping, digit symbol coding, and short-term recall) at follow-up. Participants had data from Tromsø4 (1994–1995) and Tromsø5 (2001), or Tromsø6 (2007–2008) and Tromsø7 (2015–2016). Propensity score matching, adjusted for baseline confounders (and baseline capability in a subset), was used to investigate whether spousal bereavement was associated with poorer subsequent capability. Spousal bereavement occurred for 6.2% on average 3.7 years (SD 2.0) before the capability assessment. There were no significant bereavement effects on subsequent grip strength, immediate recall, or finger-tapping speed. Without adjustment for baseline digit symbol coding test performance, there was a negative significant effect on the digit symbol coding test (ATT −1.33; 95% confidence interval −2.57, −0.10), but when baseline digit symbol coding test performance was taken into account in a smaller subsample, using the same set of matching confounders, there was no longer any association (in the subsample ATT changed from −1.29 (95% CI −3.38, 0.80) to −0.04 (95% CI −1.83, 1.75). The results in our study suggest that spousal bereavement does not have long-term effects on the intrinsic capacity components physical or cognition capability to a notable degree.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study

Strand,

Håberg,

Eyjólfsdóttir

et al. 2024

GeroScience

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“…The core of cognitive abilities is mainly limited by information-processing capacity, which decreases with age ( Lavie, 2005 ; Salthouse, 2016 ). Previous studies suggested that widowed elderly people showed declined information-processing speed ( Ward et al, 2007 ; Atalay and Staneva, 2020 ). Our results also suggest that WE had declined information-processing capacity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, widowhood might impair working memory. Studies revealed that spousal bereavement was associated with declines in working memory among the elderly ( Atalay and Staneva, 2020 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ). Second, emotional problems might also impair working memory.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly

Kou

Kong

et al. 2022

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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BackgroundThe negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed. However, whether widowhood impairs emotional cognition among the elderly is less known. The purpose of this study is to reveal the emotional cognitive deficits among the widowed elderly.MethodsIn this study, we recruited 44 widowed elderly (WE) and 44 elder couples (non-widowed elderly, NWE) and examined their emotional cognition including attention and visual working memory, which were measured by the visual search task and delayed-match-to-sample task, respectively. Three kinds of emotional faces (i.e., sad, angry, and happy) were adopted as the attentional or mnemonic targets.ResultsIt revealed that WE had a general deficit in search efficiency across emotional types, while they showed mnemonic deficits in negative faces but not positive faces. Furthermore, the modeling analysis revealed that the level of depression or state anxiety of the elderly moderated the effects of widowhood on the deficits of mnemonic processing, i.e., the deficits were only evident among WE with the high level of depression or state anxiety.ConclusionThese findings reveal the attentional deficits in sad, angry, and happy faces and the mnemonic deficits in sad and angry faces among elderly who suffer from widowhood and point out the important role of emotional problems such as depression and state anxiety in modulating these emotional cognitive deficits.

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“…Previous Empirical Studies: Widowhood and Cognition. Prior studies have documented a negative relationship between widowhood and cognitive function among older adults, albeit most of these findings are from high-income countries ( Aartsen et al, 2005 ; Atalay & Staneva, 2020 ; Gerritsen et al, 2017 ; Rosnick et al, 2010 ; Vable et al, 2015 ; Vidarsdottir et al, 2014 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ). Shin et al (2018) , using data from the Health and Retirement Study (henceforth HRS), documented that widowhood was significantly associated with cognitive decline among older adults in the United States, and found a linear relationship between time since spousal loss and cognitive decline.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Widowhood and cognition among older women in India: New insights on widowhood duration and mediators

Jain¹,

Liu²,

Langa³

et al. 2022

SSM - Population Health

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The effect of bereavement on cognitive functioning among elderly people: Evidence from Australia

Abstract: Highlights Examines how bereavement is associated with cognitive decline in elderly individuals. Investigates the mechanisms behind the cognitive effects of bereavement. We show heterogenous impacts across cognitive domains and genders. Results highlight preventive role of socialisation.

Cited by 18 publications

References 29 publications

Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study

Spousal bereavement and its effects on later life physical and cognitive capability: the Tromsø study

Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly

Widowhood and cognition among older women in India: New insights on widowhood duration and mediators

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